


Time to Regroup

by creepy_shetan



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Community: comment_fic, Gen, Implied Relationships, Injury Recovery, M/M, Male-Female Friendship, POV Outsider, unexpected word count
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:55:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24065422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/creepy_shetan/pseuds/creepy_shetan
Summary: Rey wakes up injured after a rescue mission and learns what went right and what went wrong.Set weeks afterEpisode VIIIand diverges from all ofEpisode IX.(Originally posted 2020/5/4 as a fill for a prompt.)
Relationships: Armitage Hux & Kylo Ren, Armitage Hux/Kylo Ren, Finn & Rey (Star Wars)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 19
Collections: Bite Sized Bits of Fic from 2019, Bite Sized Bits of Fic from 2020





	Time to Regroup

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vanillafluffy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanillafluffy/gifts).



Rey's gasp was cut off by a groan of pain. Wincing, she experimentally moved different joints and muscles until she found the worst of her injuries, which nearly caused her to black out once again. She gritted her teeth, hissing weakly.

Not far away, someone sighed. "I wish she would stop doing that whenever she wakes up."

"What," Rey cleared her throat. She could taste the remnants of blood in her mouth. "What happened?"

"Oh, she's lucid this time," that person said, their voice seeming to fade as if they were walking away. Rey didn't catch a glimpse of who it was, but she thought she heard, "She's awake. No, really. She spoke."

Then Rey _definitely_ heard a voice she had only hoped to hear again.

"Rey."

"Finn."

"You're okay." He shuffled closer to her bed. She could see bandaging and bruising, and what she was thinking must have shown on her face. "I'm okay."

"How long have I been--" She stopped, her eyes slowly widening. "Kylo Ren, he--Finn, is he--"

"--He's alive, Rey. It's been a day and a half." The almost growl to his voice surprised her a little, although she knew it shouldn't. Glaring at the foot of her bed, Finn continued, "He tricked you. He and Hux tricked all of us."

Rey was slow to digest Finn's words, and not simply because her head was still foggy and her vision was still blurry. She tried to think back to the last thing she remembered about their latest skirmish with the First Order, but she could only focus on two things.

"Hux... He had you at blasterpoint. And Kylo tried to..." Rey shook her head. She looked up into Finn's eyes again. "Hux shot Kylo. I saw it."

Finn sat down on the edge of the bed, next to Rey's knees. A look crossed his face, like he wanted to tell her _so much_ , but he clamped his mouth shut briefly and let out a sigh. She watched his hands as he gathered his thoughts. When he stopped wringing them together and instead gripped his own knee and thigh, Rey shifted her gaze back to his face.

"Some stuff happened between the blaster aimed at me and the blaster aimed at him, Rey. Do you remember? Do you remember the fight outside the hangar? And _inside_ the hangar?"

The memories were slowly returning with Finn's help, but it was still a jumbled blur. She frowned even as she nodded.

"We--No, _Poe_ stole a ship. We were running for it." Her expression cleared somewhat, a small tilt to the corner of her lips forming. "I saved you."

Finn blinked, and then a short laugh escaped him, almost against his will. "Yeah, you did." He shook his head with a rueful smile. "Well, at least you remember that part. I don't have to recap it for you."

"No, please do," Rey said. She tried to sound solemn but her growing grin ruined it before she could finish. "I would very much like to hear, in your own words, how I'm your hero."

Finn couldn't stifle his laugh this time, and it was the most welcome sound Rey had heard in what felt like ages. They were both painfully aware of how badly things could have gone in the past few days. If their relief was perhaps making them a touch punch-drunk, then they might as well enjoy it while it lasted. They had earned the right to take a moment to enjoy one another's company. Who knew how often they would be able to do so in the future.

Luckily for Rey, Finn decided to humor her. At the climax of his fanciful tale, however, a raised voice from a connected room interrupted in a warning tone.

"You're riling her up too much. You have eight more minutes."

Finn froze, guilt and sadness flashing across his features before he tried to cover it with a cough.

"Sorry," he called back, then he repeated himself quietly to Rey, "Sorry."

She shook her head and reached over to squeeze his hand. "No, thank you." 

His story had kept both of their minds off of what she was now dreading to know and what he was hesitant to tell her. The air around them changed as the somber weight of reality sunk in once again.

Finn turned his hand in her grip to offer his own squeeze in return, then replaced her hand to its position next to her. As soon as he let go, he spoke.

"There was no coup. After they captured me," Finn stopped and tried again, "It wasn't until the Resistance was in sight that I saw Kylo Ren. He was," Finn scowled as he spit out the next word, " _fine_. Whatever he told you," Finn's gaze darted to Rey's face and then back down, "or _showed_ you, it was all a lie. A performance."

They sat in silence for a few seconds.

" _I_ was shot by a blaster. He hit _me_." 

Rey didn't clarify if she meant Hux or Ren. Finn didn't ask.

"I've seen him do it before. He can stop a blaster bolt in midair. But," Finn bit his lip, brows furrowed, "I didn't know he could _change the trajectory_."

A sensory memory returned to Rey with unsettling sharpness: one bolt had whizzed past one ear and the other had struck her opposite shoulder. For a moment, the burn and the smell of it were overwhelming, and her stomach turned. She swallowed the feeling down.

"He hasn't perfected it yet," she said, her voice sounding hollow even to her own ears.

"Thankfully," Finn replied with heat, his frustration at not being able to stop it then or do anything about it now surfacing and then dying away again just as quickly. "Rey, I'm sorry."

"What? For what?"

"It's my fault. I never thought those two were capable of working together. They never saw eye to eye on anything, and it was almost a running joke that one day they'd finally kill each other. Or, well, Hux would _try_ and Ren would _succeed_... That's why the coup was so surprising, but also not. Of course the general would have the army backing him--"

Finn hadn't realized he'd been rambling until Rey literally shook him out of it with a shove to his shoulder.

"Blaming yourself isn't going to change anything." 

When Finn looked up, Rey hoped that he understood that her words were intended for both of them.

"Now that we know that they are willing to _pretend_ to usurp and attack and _murder_ their own leader, we have to rethink our approach."

Rey paused. Finn, thinking she was finished, quipped under his breath, "Oh, is that all?"

"Finn." 

Her mind was suddenly completely clear of its fog. She felt her concentration and something else tugging at the edges of her consciousness. A familiar gut feeling spread through her, settling her, calming her. 

"The First Order doesn't have one leader," Rey said in a slow and deliberate tone. Locking eyes with Finn, she stressed, " _It has two._ It has had two for a long time now."

Finn's expression changed oddly as he tried to make sense of Rey's apparent revelation. With one brow raised and skepticism saturating his words, he asked in a near whisper, "This isn't some Sith thing, right? That master and apprentice thing you tried to explain to me that one time?"

The laugh that erupted from Rey was so loud and so deep that her caretaker in the next room immediately appeared in the doorway to drag Finn away.

"All right, that's enough. You can come back tomorrow if she hasn't ripped a stitch open."

Rey reined in her amusement quickly, "ow's" no longer mixed into her laughter, but it was too late. As Finn stood, she managed to finally reply in a relatively sincere manner.

"Nothing like that, Finn. I simply meant that they've been pretending for much longer than anyone has realized -- including their former boss."

Finn nodded, still a little confused but more relaxed. "Get some rest, Rey."

"You, too, Finn."

The medic, whose face and the disapproval written all over it Rey finally saw, waited for Finn to leave first. Rey offered a weak wave that the medic did not acknowledge whatsoever as the lights were dimmed and the door was closed behind them.

Lying in the dark with the gears of her mind still turning, Rey thought about Hux of all people. She never really had before, and only now did she consider that maybe, in some way, that was by design. He wasn't _meant_ to attract attention, least of all hers. She was part of the Resistance, but not like those who served under its leader. She and Finn weren't part of the normal hierarchy of it all, but unlike her Finn could fit into the structure of it. He had found a place in it, but she had needed to make one. Much like, she had assumed, Kylo Ren. 

Rey tried to make herself comfortable on her back. Turning on her side jarred a sore area of her ribs. She could count on one hand how many times she'd seen Hux in person. One of those times had been what appeared to be Hux shooting Kylo in the back. She remembered the coldness of Hux's eyes as he expertly pulled the trigger twice. She remembered the shock on Kylo's face as he sank to his knees. She thought she remembered yelling something. She knew she had dropped her guard for a second, but that's all it took. 

She tried to focus on the gap between Kylo's knees hitting the durasteel and the first blaster bolt speeding towards her. His lightsaber had clattered to the floor, right? Or had that been _hers_?

Rey took a slow, even breath. After she was hit, then. She had looked from Kylo's falling body -- his feint and smooth recovery -- to where Hux stood. Hux never took his eyes off of Kylo, not even when Rey had screamed and fell or when Finn had screamed and fired shots at him. Yes, Finn had been behind Rey but too far away to catch her.

She found it. The barest tiniest glimpse, but she'd seen it. Kylo not breaking stride as he grabbed Hux by the arm and pulled him out of the way of Finn's -- as well as Poe's? -- return fire. Kylo's back to them, and before Rey's vision blackened, Hux's face. A strange balance of an annoyed glare and a triumphant smirk. Or a simultaneous complaint and a compliment.

As Rey drifted off into a dreamless sleep, she couldn't help vaguely wondering how in the universe that fearsome partnership could have possibly begun and where it could lead if left unchallenged.

**Author's Note:**

> The prompt: Any, any, faking one's own death  
> The theme: Death  
> Originally posted [here](https://comment-fic.livejournal.com/1000808.html?thread=110970216#t110970216).  
> I only own the writing.
> 
> For the curious... I wrote this one day last September, left it alone for eight months, and used a geeky pun as an excuse to share it. I like it more now than when I wrote it, but the idea deserves more exploring than I will write.
> 
> Just in case: this story doesn't intentionally ignore _TRoS_. It hadn't been released yet.


End file.
